Floris

Guest

Well-known member

RSS... OK...
But I'm talking about the emails you receive as "alerts" or "notices" from the forum.

I know many consider getting emails about posts and replys (by forum level) as spam or whatever....

But in my case, I have several small websites and my users count on getting emails to know what's going on.
True, they could visit the site or whatever, but that's just not what my user base is used to.

What they expect is...
Say I have a Forum called "Admin"
I have a few Sub Forums called "Tutorials" and "Bugs"

My users expect to be able to "subscribe" to either the Admin level or Tutorial/Bugs level and once "subscribed" - get emails on every post or reply - until they "unsubscribe".

If not subscribe to a Forum or Sub-Forum, they could watch individual threads as usual - but also.... Allow an override so they will be notified with every thread reply - even if the user has not visited the site since the last notice.

I understand on you "big boys" - this would generate alot of emails....
But in my case, it's killing my user interaction as they don't see emails so they don't think anything is going on - thus, they don't visit the site.
But when they DO visit the site, they missed a ton of new stuff...

This has been my experience with VB for a long time and I have spent days trying to figure out ways around these limitations.

Guest

Email saying "There have been more posts in the forum X since your last visit. You won't receive any more emails until you view these new messages." That way you won't get an email about every new post in there as that's not efficient.

Well-known member

@vrtsolus: But that would require a visit to the site. My users don't see the email, so they don't come thinking nothing is happening....
@Branon: This is how VB works now.... My users seem unable to grasp the last part "You won't receive......"

Well-known member

You sound quite familiar with vb3.x. My 3.8 forum has the subscribe to forum feature as part of the stock code, and people can get daily emails when posts are made in the forum. Is that what you are talking about?

Well-known member

@Abomination...
What my users want, er demand, is when they subscribe to a forum... They get emails on every post and every reply from that moment forward.
No logic to determine their last time visiting the site nor any logic to determine if they have replied to a particular thread or not.

I know for some sites, this would be a horrible idea.

However, if you could subscribe at a forum level, sub-forum level, and then ofcourse "watch" a thread - it would be universally useful for all forum owners - including us small fish...

As for the digest - it's probably a feature, but my users want more than just a digest. If VB4 had "Instant Email Notification" at the Forum level - that would be nice, but that's not a "stock" option.

Well-known member

I'm glad you said that This is the type of response I got when making this suggestion over at vb.com...

No disrespect, but think of me as the voice of the smaller boards. I already know my board will not be "large".
I could make one I suppose, but I don't have the time or team to manage it.
My boards lean toward a very small interest groups (i.e. the Potomac River)...

I'm not here making these request to change functionality for a bigger board, I am asking for considerations to be thought of for smaller boards.
I could copy and paste atleast 50 links from VB.org/com asking for such a feature, so I know I'm not alone in this.

IMO, this particular request would really not require that much effort in code or anything, the admin panel could easily have an option to activate or deactivate such a feature.
Not to mention xF - will - have some type of alert or email system, so I'm asking to consider giving the software flexibility in that regard so EVERYONE can use it, not just big boards.

Take the email option filter up a level so admins can chose to active "Instant Email Alerts" at the Thread, Sub Forum, Forum, or even Site level.
Allow admins to chose if they want the email alert system to check if the subscribed user has visited the site since the last post or alert.